


Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness

by dorothy_notgale



Category: Herbert West - Reanimator - H. P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator (1985)
Genre: Dreams, Gore, Herbert has needs and they scare me, Implied Character Death, M/M, Medical Kink, Surgery, The Trial, but seriously it's Re-Animator they can handle that, overblown metaphors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 12:59:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4667426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorothy_notgale/pseuds/dorothy_notgale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series of unconnected drabbles. Includes "Penetration," the first, which I initially posted as a separate work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Penetration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Herbert desires Dan, in his own fashion.

Herbert dreams of Daniel seeing, _being_ , inside him.

Antiseptic; scrubbed; safe and alone in an operating theater as they should be, it is perfect. Bliss without anesthetic. Cold scalpels flash in the surgical brightness.

He lies flayed, splayed open—skin pinned back to expose the heart's ceaseless pulsation. Daniel's clean, ungloved fingers search slick with blood for the ideal spot, brushing and perhaps lingering on pinkened lung or the cleanly sawn stump of rib. Herbert feels the minute pain of a spinal needle slipping sweetly into the left atrium to send light eternal surging through his failing system, and _lives._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the creepiest thing I've ever written.


	2. Tenderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mind can play tricks, but in which direction?

Following his injury, Dan’s mind holds only snatches of memory and dream. Most are either mundane or horrific, a few that unique blend of the two which results only from being the constant companion to a madman.

One, though, is neither–a thing perhaps more disconcerting simply for its foreignness. Sometimes, late at night, he feels hands stroking warm water through his overlong hair while a high, near-panicked voice rambles, “It’ll be fine, Danny. We’re going home, like you wanted. I promise–you’ll live. I’ve made sure of it.”

He shudders awake hot-and-cold whenever it swims through his sleep-muddled brain.

 


	3. Contagion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt from vraik on tumblr: DAN AND HERBERT DURING THE TRIAL

The Feds, police, and Marshals made a grand show of protecting Dan, clustering round to provide a sterile bubble between him and Herbert. He was their prize specimen, after all; defendant and star witness, all rolled into one. So very valuable to them.

No value at all to Herbert, of course. Not anymore.

Loyalty never had been Cain’s strong suit. ‘Easily swayed’ didn’t begin to describe him, which was after all how they’d gotten there in the first place (may his damned betrayed Megan rest in pieces). A little gentle persuasion, a firm hand, and he was yours, in this as in everything else.

His ever-downcast gaze made his long neck and flashing throat  look terribly fragile, exposed between his collar and sweat-damp hair.

Seeing that frame, face, those too-thin wrists each day was all that made each night’s trip back to the Arkham County Jail tolerable for Herbert. Where there was life in Dan, there was hope he could be turned again. If only they might speak–-but of course, that was what the guardians were for. 

And yet, as the prosecution provided evidence their experts couldn’t hope to interpret, as Herbert’s defense weakly debated minor points of law… he hoped. He tried. He strove, each day, to catch Dan’s eye above the sheepdogs dancing about their lone herd animal.

Perhaps (Herbert thought) the five years of exposure had fostered a susceptibility to himself; a weakness in Dan’s strapping system. In Dan’s very avoidance, his flush and perspiration, lay a suggestion that some feverish part of Herbert yet thrived beneath the skin. Perhaps his essence still wormed its way through Dan’s bloodstream, multiplying elegantly to overwhelm the host.

When Dan took the stand, the keenness of possibility sliced into Herbert’s breast like a scalpel. He looked thin and beaten, a desiccated corpse that used to be family, and his eyes were wet and red as he met Herbert’s stare.

And then Herbert knew: the man was finally immune.


	4. Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from slimeybee on tumblr: ...Herb getting overly upset about his latest projects failing and Dan has to deal with the aftermath

When Dan gets home from his shift, the house is too still, and he knows it. Nevertheless, he sticks to the routine: changes from his hospital clothes into his Work scrubs, dons his nurse shoes, and ventures down to the basement, their little pit of charnel horrors.

Their abandoned basement. He actually has to turn on the light.

It’s much too quiet. Everything has been halted, dead and dark as it should never be in this lab of all places–there's nothing heating or cooling or dripping, no flames nor phosphorescent glow.

For the first time in weeks, no sounds of respiration emanate from the _thing_ on the slab.

And now Dan fears. Because this, all of this, makes him wonder how much other death the house might contain, with him all willfully unaware.

He takes the stairs three at a time, thunders down the hall from bathroom to bedroom, even as a soft refrain beats in time with his thudding heart. 

_Maybe it’s over…_


	5. Get Me To The Church On Time

“Dan, it’s nearly time,” Herbert said, leaning in the door of his assistant’s room. “What are you—“

He trailed off, cocking his head at the sight of Dan standing at the mirror with a too-thin tie looped beneath his collar, ends dangling free in the reflection.

“I only own clip-ons.” Dan’s voice trembled. “I can’t show up to the church in a clip-on.”

“Dan…” Herbert walked gingerly up and turned Dan to face him. They were so close, and so separated by circumstance. In a week, they wouldn’t be sharing this house. “She won’t care,” he said, offering what he could and feeling the infinite weight of two plane tickets to the tropics in his pocket. He’d give them to Dan, after.

“ _I_ _’ll_ care, shouldn’t that be enough?”

Herbert pursed his lips. This whole _situation_ , Dan’s attachment, this farcical ceremony—he hated it and what it meant.

Still, he’d promised (in some moment of madness) to be by Dan’s side in this, and so he tugged the ends to an appropriate length (more uneven than for himself, given Dan’s height.) He went with a proper Full Windsor, rather than the simple Four-In-Hand he wore.

“Better?” he asked, hands still clutching the knot, feeling Dan’s smooth-shaven Adam’s apple bob against his knuckles, the warmth and comfort of breathing _right there_.

“Yes, Herbert. Much better.” Dan’s voice was thick, his eyes misted with tears. “C'mon, she’s waiting.”

He turned away, gathering his jacket over his arm.

“No, Dan,” Herbert murmured, too softly to be heard. “She’s not.”

The funeral was lovely.


End file.
